Unrequited
by allthoselittlemusings
Summary: Emily struggles with her feelings for JJ. F/F. First chap set in season 5. Characters aren't mine, obviously.
1. Chapter 1

It seems to start when the truck hits them, literally turning Emily's life upside down.

She has worked so hard on that tough-chick swagger; it is such a part of her now, but Jennifer Jareau ruins it, because Jennifer Jareau is a proper life-ruiner.

Emily is hurting. Physically, she wouldn't have been surprised if the doctor had told her her ribs were nothing more than a pile of fine dust. Emotionally, she shouldn't be in shock. She's alive and she's certainly seen worse things than a man get strangled next to her. Then again, the un-sub is in the wind, the team are working without her, and she's terribly, terribly lonely.

JJ turns up to the hospital, and Emily in her self-deprecating state tells herself that Morgan has ordered them to visit her on rotation. She's wearing that damn grey skivvy that accentuates the soft curve of her stomach, and a pair of low-riding jeans. When she sits on the end of the bed and bends down to pull her boots off, the skivvy rides up, the jeans ride down, and the thick expanse of alabaster skin, dotted only with a few light moles, is something Emily could make constellations from.

Of course, it gets worse.

Boots discarded on the floor, JJ curls up on the bed and Emily could almost, _almost_ tell herself that JJ wanted to be there. Her blue-green eyes are sparkling with concern. Emily gives her a lop-sided smile.

"Time to buy a lot'ry ticket" she wheezes and she wishes JJ would laugh, just to give her some self-assurance that she's still funny.

"Oh, Emmy" JJ doesn't laugh, but she does move to gently brush the bangs from Emily's gashed forehead. Immediately, the strands spring back into place from under the palm of her hand and so she does it again, and again. Emily wishes she would stop, unless she's planning to do it forever, because comfort, to the hardened heart of Emily Prentiss, is like crack.

Of course the fix ends as quickly as it begins. JJ has a partner, and a child. And Emily, well, Emily has Morgan to pick her up in the morning.

After she leaves, with nothing more than a gentle kiss on her cheek, Emily feels the most uncharacteristic surge of anger towards Will.

* * *

She has seen so few mistakes from JJ that the ones she does make stand out.

All morning, JJ has been poring over pictures of strangled teenagers with the most anguished look on her beautiful baby face and that chain between her fingers. It's hard to read a distressed JJ but certainly not impossible; she becomes a little less eloquent and a little more vulnerable, and it doesn't get past Emily

It's only a single "if" – if they committed suicide - and yet the reaction is devastating. Emily feels for her; the bar is set so high - the blonde's own doing - that there's nowhere to go sometimes but under it. The grieving parents back JJ into a proverbial corner and Emily gets protective, but JJ is too hurt to notice.

On the jet, JJ is avoiding the team, but Emily wants attention so she recounts the story of the star loud enough for the tiny blonde to hear all the way at the back of the plane. A second later she hates herself for it, because it's not about her and she damn well knows that. What she really wants is for JJ to turn around with the sudden epiphany that Emily would bring down a star for her. She wants to be the one who gets to brush her hair back and whisper terms of endearment. She wants to be good at comfort, like JJ is. But she's not, and so, she concedes, it's incredibly selfish for her to want to be a part of JJ's grief.

Emily stays where she is and JJ talks to Hotch instead, returning to her seat without a word, eyes red-rimmed and teary. Although Emily expected it, her heart feels like the broken star in her stupid story.

* * *

A few weeks later she wears _that_ red dress.

"Have a good weekend, JJ," she slurs with all the confidence of those couple of Friday lunchtime mojitos. Hell, she's sly, up against the desk, all legs and brashness and she knows it. But JJ doesn't even blink as she spins around holding another manila folder. She cares about ruining their weekends, but not that Emily has had to avoid almost every sleaze in the building all day just so JJ could see her in her best come-fuck-me dress.

"Sorry guys. Wheels up in an hour"

That means that Emily has 45 minutes in the gym, and she pounds a bag until her knuckles are the same color as the stupid red dress that has only ever helped her pick up wanker suits in cocktail bars.

The heat in Tallahassee puts a pink glow in JJ's cheeks and Emily has to train herself to look away. She slips up twice; once when JJ pauses to tie up her hair into a messy blonde pony, and once when she spreads lotion on her v-neck burn exposing slightly more of her cleavage than she intends to. Both times Emily reprimands herself. She tells herself she'll learn. Besides, none of her previous teenage-e girl crushes had stuck around long enough to turn into big girl crushes.

The resolve lasts until the trip home. She gambles her way to a giant pot of peanut shells, and then, with the extra ego, struts up the jet catwalk past JJ just to show her she'd sinned-to-win at least once this weekend.

JJ doesn't look up from her case-file and Emily couldn't have felt more invisible if they'd left her in Tallahassee.

* * *

She beats herself up for a week. Well, a working week, really, she tells herself in an effort to lessen how pathetic she feels. She tries to find that tough-girl swagger, but one morning, right after she's layered on the standard amount of Emily Prentiss-mascara, she thinks about JJ stroking back her hair all those months ago in the hospital and her tears make the ink run before it's set.

It's the first time she concedes, as she's scrubbing black smudges from her cheeks in the BAU bathroom, that this might be a problem. A proper fucking problem.

But how many ways were there to ignore everything that Jennifer Jareau was? How many ways were there to _not_ fall for her? Reid with his eidetic memory and Einstein bravado couldn't remember her coffee order, but JJ could. JJ could be more tender with her than any man had been in her life, and yet, none of it meant anything, as much as she'd wanted to believe it could.

Another wave of tears and she opts to forego a second attempt at her mascara and makes for a cubicle, trying to sob as quietly as her rapidly swelling sinuses will let her, completely classless in her inability to regain any semblance of control. The memory of JJ comforting her with an 'Emmy' as she lay so miserably in that hospital bed sets her off a third time, and a fourth. It's only when the roll is empty and her hands are clutching the last wad of available toilet paper like a lifeline, that she tells herself this can't go on.

It's that same night that JJ invites her out.


	2. Chapter 2

The air is a little crisper than she expected for the time of year, but it's not crisp enough to forego the black dress. After all, she can't wear the red one a second time.

She has a choice of shopping with Garcia or joining JJ on the coffee run. Is it even a choice, she muses, as she swipes JJ's hand away where it is poised to pay.

" _Don't,_ JJ" she warns, but it is lighthearted, more lighthearted than she has been for weeks. Because she's a new woman, so far removed for the one who, just 8 hours ago, was crying in the BAU bathrooms like it was junior year and Rosie Watts had made fun of her pointy nose again. JJ rolls her eyes, but it's with affection.  
"I'll get the next one" she says more sternly, and Emily hopes the next one will be later tonight.

As they drift back towards the shopping strip, Emily is acutely aware of how different the world is when JJ is beside her. The DC lights, which she's no stranger to, shine a little brighter than usual, the sounds of backed-up traffic don't bother her the same way they usually do. She's smiling for no reason because the night seems to hold some promise - even if promise is just a movie with friends.

Emily's not even mad when JJ brings up Rawson. Although, she cringes when JJ calls him hot. She doesn't want to speak to Rawson, and even less does she want JJ to think she wants to speak to Rawson. She makes up some bullshit about their work schedules to change the subject, but instantly regrets it.

"Will and I make it work"

Emily's heart pangs. There it is again; that anger. Irrational and un-Emily like. She has to shake it off when she sees Garcia struggling towards them under the weight of boutique bags.

When JJ gets the text, Emily's spirits lift a little. A weekend on a case means a weekend with JJ. Emily realises how pathetic that sounds. There's no denying that she's more excited about going to work than seeing a movie.

"Maybe I should get a cat"

* * *

It's almost six and they're descending into Anchorage.

Emily should be concentrating on the brief, but JJ is sitting diagonally across from her with the most adorable, sleepy eyes, and she can't breathe. For all the time they spend at work, all the late nights that turn into graveyard shifts, JJ is always so well put together. Emily doesn't want to pass up the rare treat that is a JJ with bed hair, baby blues squinting against morning light.

She hasn't had much sleep herself. She could almost blame having to sleep upright, except she has spent a good few hours watching nothing but JJ's shoulders rise and fall in the dark next to her, pretending to be asleep when she stirred. She's not a good sleeper anyway, her subconscious isn't kind to her, and the last thing she had wanted was for JJ to think any more of her as the fragile woman she'd seen in the hospital. If she had woken JJ with a nightmare, the chances of her being able to refuse the comfort that JJ would undoubtedly offer was slim.

She thinks, later on as the seaplane skims the surface of the water and she sees nothing but snow capped Alaskan mountains, that if it wasn't for the three dead bodies waiting for them, this could be a romantic weekend away.

* * *

"Em, it's cold" JJ is already into her flannelettes and pulling a throw off the couch to wrap herself in before Emily can even get the fire going. She can't believe her luck. Four rooms. Three double beds. Rossi and Hotch had taken the twin singles.

"It'll warm up soon, Jayje" she murmurs, pushing around the kindling, trying to act like there was nothing different - that that tiny double bed didn't have a giant ditch the size of both their bodies right in the middle. The fire comes to life, JJ climbs into bed and opens the file, and Emily disappears into the bathroom

"Why did he stab her with an arrow? Like a harpoon - it does seem like he's a hunter. Why not shoot her though? Why..." the sound of JJ's voice is replaced by water on tiles as Emily climbs into the shower.

 _Oh god, that's good._ The late night that had turned into an early morning washes from Emily's aching neck. She leans against the steaming tiles and closes her eyes, reminding herself not to slip up, telling herself that this whole crazy, beautiful dream of sharing a bed with JJ would end just as quickly as it had begun.

When she emerges from the bathroom, clad in her own version of pyjamas (boy shorts and a Nationals jersey she stole from an old boyfriend), her breath catches. JJ is asleep. Not like on the plane, where she tossed and turned and tried to crack her back at regular intervals; JJ is properly asleep, and Emily can see nothing but a cold nose poking out from under a tuft of blonde hair. The file has slipped from her hands onto the floor.

"Oh, _Jayje"_ she can't stop herself as she creeps over to pick up the folder. Emily's heart is swelling with something that feels horribly, terribly like love and for the second night in a row she tries not to sleep for fear of missing something as pure as JJ with her walls down.

* * *

At first she thinks the scream has come from the tiny blonde next to her.

"Will? Em? EMILY?" Emily has drifted off during the night, but when JJ calls out, she startles awake. Acutely aware that she is warmer than she should be, Emily realises that JJ is no longer on the other side of the bed. Instead she is pressed up against Emily's side, nails digging into bare forearms. Emily's first fleeting thought, as she breathes to still her pounding heart, is that JJ's action is nothing more than a subconscious response to the sub-zero temperatures. Her second, less-fleeting thought is that JJ has confused her with Will, after all, it wasn't Emily that she'd called for first. Either way, heart clenching with jealousy or not, Emily's instinct is the same: protect her.

"JJ, honey hey. It's... " She finds her gun and the light switch at the same time, clears the room mechanically and then throws open the ensuite "It's okay, you're okay"

"Em'ly, come back. I heard..." there's distress in JJ's tone because Emily has disappeared around the bathroom door. As she's checking the shower cubicle, JJ calls to her again

"Em, where are you? Please, I heard..." Emily reappears and there's visible relief.

"What did you hear, Jayje?"

"There was a scream... I..."

Just when Emily is about to tell her she's had a nightmare and she should stop reading case files right before bed, the next scream pierces the freezing Alaskan air. By now Emily's awake enough to discern two things: it's outside and it's not JJ, it's Garcia.

"Fuck. JJ, stay here, Jayje honey. Do not leave this room, okay? Emily is already searching for her jeans under a pile of discarded clothes. One boot on and she's moving towards the door, two boots on by the time she's down the hallway and she breaks into a run.

* * *

JJ hasn't stayed in the room but Emily can't be too mad because she's holding two steaming mugs. Of course, she looks immaculate and ready to work - grey sweater, black jeans, brushed hair - but Emily can't forget - doesn't want to forget - the image of JJ sitting up in bed trying to anchor herself to Emily's voice.

"Hey, thank you" She accepts the coffee gratefully and sinks down in front of the fire. JJ curls up next to her and Emily wonders if she even remembers, if she's even aware, of her overt display of vulnerability. She wonders if JJ realises how ready Emily was to hold her for the rest of the night. Emily knows too well that she'll get lost in her head if she keeps thinking, and so she speaks without turning away from the fire;

"How's Pen?"

"She wants to be alone. But she'll be okay" JJ's gentle voice warms her more than the coffee or the fire ever could. She doesn't want the simplicity in this moment to end. It's comfortable, and Emily is so rarely comfortable.

"Em, I thought it was you. The scream" JJ's next words make her look up. Flames are dancing off flushed cheeks. JJ looks so young and there's a shyness in her eyes. Emily has to look away first.

"S'okay. I thought it was you" Emily gives a half-laugh, even though trivialising the situation is the last thing she wants to do. JJ doesn't answer and so Emily takes a too big swig of coffee that scalds her throat and forces her into silence. She wishes it was scotch. The fire snaps and Rossi's muffled voice addressing Hotch drifts in from the landing. JJ downs her mug and rises.

"Emily. Thank you"

Emily wants to ask her what for. She wants to say that it's no problem. But JJ is gone by the time she looks up.


	3. Chapter 3

Down by the fire, it's a game of musical chairs.

JJ shifts to the armchair, Emily takes the couch. JJ shifts to the couch, Emily sinks down in the armchair. Emily can't look too hard, not in a room full of profilers. JJ's bundled into a windbreaker with her legs tucked underneath her and her baby blues staring lazily off into the flames and Emily doesn't trust herself not to look for a split second too long and give it away.

She can't be too close to JJ, but then, she can't be too far apart either. There's a killer prowling the tiny town and even though it's completely irrational to think anything could happen to them in the safety of the inn, she still needs JJ to be within arm's reach. Emily's heart aches to turn the ten inches between them into one, and yet her head, stoic and stubborn, tells her to stay where she is and keep her eyes trained on the patterns carved into the deerskin rug. She plays with her lips and picks her fingernails, all while JJ's perfume fills her nostrils and begs for her attention.

The conflict exhausts her. She remembers her elation as they stood on the sidewalk in DC, the promise of a weekend with JJ filling her with hope. Now she is tired; the extra emotion sapping her of her energy. She just wants to sleep, rather, she wants to drift into a dream where she can freely gaze into JJ's powdery blue eyes and pepper her blonde strands with kisses, because reality wasn't delivering.

She waits until it ticks over to ten, the first acceptable hour to bail. before she excuses herself, draining her mug and giving a wry smile at the team, deliberately avoiding JJ's gaze.

"Guys, I'm out" She doesn't even stop to return her mug to the bar "Wake me with any news"

"Is she coming down with something?" Reid's voice is the last thing she hears as she ascends the stairs.

* * *

Emily hasn't been back to the room all day and what she sees when she enters doesn't help. She curses her brain and the way it works; the way it pieces together scenes she doesn't want to see. The fire has burned out but the bathroom lamp and half-ajar door throws a glow across the room. It's dim, but not dim enough to hide the flannelettes in a pile on the floor, nor the black cotton briefs discarded next to them. Emily, even with her heart starting to thump uncomfortably, can deduce that JJ left the room in a hurry. There's a crease in the sheets, suspiciously JJ-shaped in nature and the comforter is strewn across the foot of the bed, the remainder of clothes and a novel thrown from JJ's duffel bag. The scene is reminiscent of something that Emily can't put her finger on; something far removed from the horror of bloodied bodies and night stalkers. It's almost comforting, the disarray their room is in. _Their_ room. _Our_ _room._

"Em?" JJ's voice is like velvet. In her trance, Emily has forgotten to shut the door all the way and JJ has crept into the room in the time it has taken for Emily to burn the image of JJ rising, still in a half-panic, shedding her pants and underwear and rifling through her bag for her day clothes, into her head.

"Jay - I..."

 _I can't do this with you._ She wants to say it. She should say it so the whole stupid fantasy stops compromising her professionalism. On any other night, she'd still be downstairs with her team, looking at the file until her eyes ached.

"Jayje..."

JJ's fingers ghost across the back of her maroon sweater, pausing to rest on her spine.

"Em, I may not be a profiler but I'm not stupid"

"Course you're not, JJ" Emily lets out the breath that she's been holding, and shuts her eyes. She can't bear even the slightest inkling that she may make JJ feel insufficient. _You are enough Jayje, the problem is that you are more than enough._

"Em, I'm scared too"

JJ says it quietly and Emily clenches her fists. She hasn't moved an inch - can't move an inch. JJ's fingertips are burning through her sweater, setting every vertebrae they come into contact with on fire. She remembers the fear in JJ's eyes the night before, the nightmare coupled with Garcia's screams, culminating in a distress that Emily wished she could forget.

 _We're not scared of the same thing, JJ._ Emily is frustrated and she thanks a higher cosmic power that JJ isn't a profiler, because she's sure that her face reflects her turmoil. Still, she can't ignore JJ's admission of fear, so innocent and fragile and _beautiful._ Emily's instincts, primal and protective, don't want JJ to be scared.

"Hey, JJ. Look, it's cold and... we're tired" Suddenly Emily has a purpose; _a distraction._ She needs to make JJ feel safe, even if it ruins her. "Let's get some sleep".

* * *

The routine from the previous night all but repeats itself. JJ uses the bathroom while Emily arranges the kindling. She triple - quadruple - checks the door is locked and yanks it for extra measure just as JJ emerges in black sweats, giving Emily a small smile of appreciation for her extra efforts. Emily showers, keeping her hair out of the spray because she's too tired to blow-dry the pesky bangs. She draws a heart in the steam and then rubs it away.

When she exits the bathroom, JJ is still awake; curled up on her side and staring unblinkingly at the bathroom door. Emily notices the file, expanded to include the mutilated animals, open again on the bedside table. _C'mon_ _Jayje, you don't need to look at this stuff._ She wants to reprimand JJ aloud, but the blonde looks ten-years younger without make-up on, and can't meet her eyes, so she closes the file and makes a point of putting it in her bag before flicking off the light.

Only when the room is plunged into complete darkness does Emily allow herself the small respite of a tear. It's single, silent, cold before it even makes its way over the bridge of her nose. She manages to keep it to one.

* * *

The digital clock on the nightstand ticks over to three, and somewhere outside their window a wolf howls.

JJ wakes immediately, startled from her sleep for the second night in a row, and instinctively rolls over. Emily holds her breath, waiting for the feel of supple curves moving against her own to stop. She barely has time to readjust to the proximity of JJ's body when an arm is thrown over her waist and Emily has to will every muscle in her body not to react because JJ is just scared. _There's a psychopath somewhere outside our door in the dark and the cold, and JJ is away from her family and scared._

"Cold, hey?" Emily tries to laden her voice with sleep, when in reality she hasn't slept for a minute. She has never been a master of conversation, but the fire - she estimates in its fifth hour - is looking a bit miserable and so it's not out of the realm of possibility that JJ is cold.

A face presses into her spine, firm and unapologetic in response. _Jesus._ JJ is hiding in her back and if Emily could just bring herself to roll over she could wrap all of JJ up in her arms and press her lips to the crown of her head like she'd imagined only the evening before. _That is not what she needs, Prentiss._ It wasn't the way friends reassured friends, and JJ was her friend first and her hormonal girl crush second. Trying to ignore the hand cupping her belly and the cold toes brushing her calf muscles, Emily speaks with tenderness.

"Jayje, we're safe here. We'll get him. It's okay, don't be scared of the case"

"Em'ly" JJ's voice is properly sleepy, and muffled in response. There's a pause. To Emily it lasts a lifetime as they lay together unmoving in the dark.

"Jayje?"

"I never said I was scared of the case"


End file.
